Fences (‘windfence’) have been recently used for reducing the speed of natural wind on open-air ore stacks in patios of pelletizing plants. This is now a necessity due to the increasing enforcement of environmental protection laws and pollution control to the iron ore industry and other industrial fields which require large open-air stock patios for granulated mineral ores. The vertical support of windfences, which completely surround patios containing iron ore powder is made by latticed metal towers arranged on the boundaries of these patios.
Even though these towers serve the function to which they are intended, they are made of latticed steel sections (L, U, C, I or tubular sections) in a total of 55 to 60 welded elements weighting approximately 3.90 T to 10.8 T, with an average weight of 7.60 T per tower. They have base dimensions of =smaller tower (2.53×3.02 m triangular-shaped) and larger tower (4.31×3.45 m triangular-shaped) and height dimensions of =smaller tower (14.96 m) and larger tower (29.52 m) with an average height of (26.90 m). Besides, they require large concrete bases of the order of 50 m3 with dimensions of (5×5×2 m). These bases, in addition to having a significant cost, generate undesirable interferences with water, compressed air, gas and cable manifolds passing on the perimeter of mineral ore patios. Owing to these technical features, the currently existing windfence supporting towers have high manufacture, assembly and installation costs, as well as they require the adaptation of tube networks and manifolds passing on the perimeter of mineral ore patios. In addition, base dimensions of the current tower have a concrete volume about 5 times as great as the tower with tension-integrity that is the object of the present patent application.
Current windfence supporting towers may cause some inconveniences in installation areas, such as:                Obstruction of parts of streets and entrances;        Greater tendency of interfering with buried mechanical and electrical elements and/or components;        Extended term for execution, thus implying in larger periods of patio interdiction.        